ArticleCancer research2011
Shorter telomeres associate with a reduced risk of melanoma development.
Article in Cancer research, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 61 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
61 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The association between telomere length and cancer risk in population studies.Scientific reports · 2016Pooled it
- DCAF4, a novel gene associated with leucocyte telomere length.Journal of medical genetics · 2015Pooled it
- The Association between Telomere Length and Cancer Prognosis: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis.PloS one · 2015Pooled it
- Height and bone mineral density are associated with naevus count supporting the importance of growth in melanoma susceptibility.PloS one · 2015Trial
- Flavonoid intake and telomere length attrition among middle-aged women: a cross-sectional analysis of the Nurses' Health Study.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Integrative screening identifies functional variants and VNTRs underlying GWAS signals at the 5p15.33 multi-cancer susceptibility locus.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Telomere length and skin cancer risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis of melanoma, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.Oncology letters · 2025Article
- Telomere length and chronotype among women in the California Teachers Study (CTS).Chronobiology international · 2024Article
- Role of telomere length in human carcinogenesis (Review).International journal of oncology · 2023Review
- Association of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acid intake with leukocyte telomere length in US males.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2022Article
- Pre-diagnostic telomere length and colorectal cancer risk.Cancer epidemiology · 2022Article
- TERT Promoter Mutations and Telomerase in Melanoma.Journal of oncology · 2022Review
- Association between melanoma and exposure to sex hormones in puberty: A possible window of susceptibility (Review).Molecular and clinical oncology · 2021Review
- Telomeres and Telomere Length: A General Overview.Cancers · 2020Review
- Prioritization and comprehensive analysis of genes associated with melanoma.Oncology letters · 2019Article
- Effect of therapies-mediated modulation of telomere and/or telomerase on cancer cells radiosensitivity.Oncotarget · 2018Review
- Prospective association of depression and phobic anxiety with changes in telomere lengths over 11 years.Depression and anxiety · 2018Article
- Reflections on telomere dynamics and ageing-related diseases in humans.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Relation of long-term patterns in caregiving activity and depressive symptoms to telomere length in older women.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2018Article
- Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase Polymorphism rs2736100: A Balancing Act between Cancer and Non-Cancer Disease, a Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2018Article
1 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Epidemiologic studies have linked shortened telomeres with the development of many cancers. However, recent studies have suggested that longer telomeres may lead to prolonged senescence in melanocytes, providing increased opportunity for malignant transformation. We therefore examined whether shorter prediagnostically measured relative telomere length in peripheral blood leukocytes (PBL) was associated with a decreased risk of cutaneous melanoma. Telomere length in prospectively collected PBLs was measured in incident melanoma cases and age-matched controls selected from participants in three large prospective cohorts: the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study (WHI-OS), the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS), and the Nurses' Health Study (NHS). Shorter telomere lengths were associated with decreased risk of melanoma in each cohort. The P(trend) across quartiles was 0.03 in the WHI-OS and 0.008 in the HPFS. When combining these two datasets with published data in the NHS (P(trend), 0.09), compared with individuals in the fourth quartile (the longest telomere lengths), those in the first quartile had an OR of 0.43 (95% CI: 0.28-0.68; P(trend), 0.0003). Unlike findings for other tumors, shorter telomeres were significantly associated with a decreased risk of melanoma in this study, suggesting a unique role of telomeres in melanoma development.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.